This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Relationship as a path leads us on a journey of the heart - which involves becoming more fully human, more available to life as a whole. Intimate relationships are ideally suited as this kind of path because they inspire our heart to open, while at the same time showing us where we are most stuck.
Character | Heart | Journey | Life | Life | Relationship | Time |
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean.
Of all exercises there are none of so much importance, or so immediately our concern, as those which let us into the knowledge of our own nature. Others may exercise the understanding or amuse the imagination; but these only can improve the heart and form the human mind to wisdom.
Character | Heart | Imagination | Knowledge | Mind | Nature | Understanding | Wisdom |
Have I met the hour patiently, without fear, at the portal? Now is my name called, of the lip of my love has spoken: Do I mistake you, O divine Signaler? is it after all some other soul that is hailed. My self is my answer: there’s that in my heart responds, meeting the call with equal voice, establishing forever the unspeakable bond! Bond that does not bind - bond that frees - bond that discovers and bestows. Look! I am flushed with inexhaustible possessions! The old measures vanish, I am expanded to infinite sweep... Before birth, seeing birth, after life seeing life!... This minute grown infinite, the far worlds spread before me, the endless drift of soul...
Birth | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mistake | Possessions | Self | Soul | Old |
Self-inspection - the best cure for self-esteem... By all means sometimes be alone; salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; dare to look in thy chest, and tumble up and down what thou findest there.
You often hear the remark that “there is no harm in a glass of wine per se.” Per se means by itself. Certainly there is no harm in a glass of wine by itself. Place a glass of wine one a shelf and let it remain there, and it is per se, and will harm no one. But if you turn it inside a man, then it is no longer per se.
Habits - the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs. Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way - by finding that it is a means of satisfaction.
R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth
To teach Zen means to unteach; to see life steadily and see it whole, the answer not being divided from the question; no parrying, dodging, countering, solving, changing the words; an activity which is a physical and spiritual unity with All-Activity.
Life | Life | Means | Question | Teach | Unity | Wisdom | Words | Zen |
Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch
Whatever task you undertake, do it with all your heart and soul. Always be courteous, never be discouraged. Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. Do not look for approval except the consciousness of doing your best.
Blame | Consciousness | Heart | Nothing | Soul | Wisdom | Approval |